Kant landed heavily then used one hand to back off a few steps, before getting back up to his feet. His brows knitted together as he looked at the intense dark energy oscillating around Harley's nose and mouth. Glancing down at his shattered armguard and his gauntlet covered in slashes, a spark of rage ignited within him.
He knew that venomous snake Weiman had ulterior motives. Why else would he so easily entrust a job as basic as capturing a handful of powerless kids to him? They were clearly from different factions with no bonds between them. It appears that he really had been tricked.
Everyone said how weak humans were, so human children should be even weaker. Even if there were some immensely powerful humans, their offspring would not be equally formidable. This was the consensus among the Apocalypse Star people. Kant, hailed as the greatest fighter in the universe, would definitely not be able to return to Apocalypse Star if ever he were to be bested by mere human kids.
Kant, however, was not the brainless type who could only throw punches. He noticed that each of the children was exhibiting the same type of energy flux. If they were all Batman's children, then, it was likely that this energy originated from Batman.
Kant was certain that Batman wasn't present because the fleet's united signal protection network had just been attacked, likely by Batman's doing. The fact that he was focused on this cyber warfare implied that Batman was unaware of the danger his children were in.
Kant was well aware that all life forms in the material universe were a co-existence of the soul and the physical body. The strength of one would affect the other. A youth who hadn't matured physically would not have a powerful soul, implying that their energy limit would not be too great. Once devoid of energy, wouldn't mere humans with their frail bodies be far too easy to handle?
Thus, Kant took a couple of steps back and glanced down the hallway. If he wasn't mistaken, the teleportation demon's portal was expanding yet again, allowing for the arrival of the second wave of five unit type demons. After a brief consideration, he took off towards the portal.
Kant's plan was to use the endless monsters pouring out from the portal to deplete the children's energy and stamina. By the time they got past the masses of monster soldiers and stood before him, they would have already lost the explosive power granted by their abilities, making them much easier to deal with.
Kant mused over this as he broke into a run, not hesitating in the slightest. He wasn't worried about whether or not the kids would be able to catch up. Setting aside the murderous intent and frenzy exuding from the little girl he'd had a few exchanges with, the reconnaissance reports had all mentioned that humans were emotional beings. They impulsively acted out, unlike the evolved warriors of Apocalypse Star. This not only applied to the adults but even more so for the kids.
In Kant's long history of combat, he'd encountered numerous adversaries like this who were reckless in battle. They allowed the anger provoked by Kant's nimble moves and variable tactics to consume them. The moment Kant feigned exhaustion and retreated, they'd eagerly rush in to give chase, only to end up falling into his trap. Beyond cursing Kant's cunning, they were utterly helpless.
Kant had lost count of the number of 'saviors' hailed by entire planetary populations he had taken down this way.
Meanwhile, in the maze-like corridor before the grand entrance, whether it was Harley who was full of murderous intent just moments ago, or Spider Man and Helen standing guard at the entrance, everybody stood in silence. Nobody planned to give chase.
Harley used a hand to brush her tousled hair behind her head. The murderous intent and lunacy in her eyes faded away, replaced with a crazy sort of calm. It seemed as though she'd suddenly glimpsed the future in that moment, foreseeing a scene where she chased after Kant alone, and Spider Man followed while gripped with worries for her. Ultimately, they ended up falling into an ambush by an army of monsters and Helen had to come to their rescue.
Harley licked her slightly dry and cracked lips, letting go of the knife handle she'd been clutching. The knife floated mid-air behind her as she turned around and headed back inside the door.
The grand door slowly closed. Spider Man used his spider silk to carefully seal up the door crack and said, "I thought for sure you'd try to chase after him just now."
"Who would be so foolish?" Harley touched her trembling arm and said, "I didn't inflict any real damage on him, so why did he suddenly run? If there isn't a trap ahead, I'll eat my hat. He thinks he can play me like this, humph..."
All in all, Harley's combat skills were rather mediocre, giving her only the slight advantage of being unpredictable in a fight which made her challenging to analyze. She wasn't built strong and could, under most circumstances, handle only one grownup. Yet, she managed to protect a significant inheritance in Gotham city all by herself, following the deaths of her parents. The primary factor behind that was her extremely accurate danger instinct.
Without her powers, Harley - being a young girl - wouldn't stand a chance against the burly mobsters. Her predatory relatives who came knocking on her door didn't care about humanitarianism; they were intent on killing Harley and seizing her inheritance. Under such circumstances, Harley's strategy was to first avoid the brunt of the attack, then hide and locate the enemies' weak points before striking back when an opportunity arose.
The strategy was like walking on a tightrope high up in the sky. The opponents could afford countless mistakes but Harley couldn't mess up even once. Against all odds, not only did she make it through, she did so while performing somersaults, acrobatics, and juggling. Her troublesome relatives eventually stopped bothering her, because everyone knew what kind of lunatic little girl old Quezel left behind.
"Hey, are you listening? Harley! Harley!"
Helen's voice echoed from a distance. Harley suddenly came to, rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and said, "I was just remembering some old times. I can't seem to recall if I tied a permanent knot or a slipknot in my distant cousin's intestines..."
Spider Man shuddered. He decided against asking for more details. Picking up the previous conversation, Helen said, "It's obvious that he came for us. We can't confirm who he's targeting specifically among us yet, but regardless of who it is, we can't let him succeed."
"He'll soon realize we're not giving chase. If we truly are his target, there's no way he'd simply give up. I suspect that he might lead a hoard of monsters to charge at our door next."
Helen turned to look at Barry, still unconscious on the ground, and said, "The best course of action would be to relocate immediately. However, Barry's still unconscious. If we fled with him, it could interfere with his battle with the dark energy and potentially trigger a loss of control. It seems we have no choice but to hold our ground here for a while."
"Can't we set a trap at the door?" Spider Man scratched his face and said, "We can at least eliminate some monsters in advance, might allow us to hold on a bit longer."
At this moment, Little Bruce, who had been staring blankly in the corner of the room, spoke in a ghostly voice, "Are you guys seriously discussing battle tactics?"
"What else?" Spider Man spread his hands.
"Lack of deep thought." Little Bruce rose to his feet, "Haven't any of you noticed that the maze has a self-repairing ability?" Turning to look at the corner, Little Bruce added, "Even the moss that I stepped on earlier has recovered at an incredible speed. Why do you think that is?"
"To prevent anyone from leaving marks?" Harley immediately answered.
"So, why do you believe that the stupid aliens and their stupid army can navigate this maze freely without getting lost?"
"Err... " Spider Man was taken aback, but countered, "The aliens can't be that stupid, can they?"
"If they weren't that stupid, the gateway wouldn't open in the middle of the maze." Little Bruce looked up at the ceiling, his eyes full of codes, "This is exactly Batman's plan—he recognized for whom this maze was built."
Little Bruce's train of thought was too elusive for Spider Man to follow instantly, however Harley, being a fellow Gothamite, grasped it more quickly, saying,
"If Batman researched the darkness of Gotham, it would be impossible for him not to notice someone has been targeting this city. The dark energy in the city's metallic architecture is evidence."
"And my blood can react with the metals in the city." Little Bruce continued, "This proves that I am their target, they want to use me as the key, using my blood to open a door."
"In other words, Batman knew in advance that someone was targeting him behind the scenes." Helen, having absorbed Harley's wisdom, caught up with the rhythm, "Mixing darkness into the city's metallic architecture and constructing such a large maze aren't traceless. Batman could have discovered some clues, thus deducing that the adversary spent years just to build a trap for him."
"I doubt Batman expected the scale of the trap to be this large." Little Bruce pronounced, "However, without any doubt, when he saw this trap, he knew who was being targeted, hence he returned the gift, untouched, back to the invaders."
"Because he knew that even if this trap had a one percent chance of trapping him, it would be an unquestionable chasm for any other life."
The room fell silent for a few seconds after his explanation. Helen sighed lightly, tapping her forehead with the base of her palm, "Keeping pace with the thoughts of your self-obsessed maniacs really is quite challenging, but I think I've made quite some progress, right?"
"The best method right now is to do nothing." Little Bruce declared, "The room we are in may be the safest room in the entire maze. This may be the endpoint of the maze. This is where the door opens."
Harley's eyes widened, she remembered the dark space she had entered through the ritual. A certain heavy emotion climbed onto her face. Helen instantly noticed and asked, "What's wrong? Feeling upset about not being able to fight? Maybe later we can..."
"No, I was thinking..." Harley took a deep breath.
The next second, her face was full of sadness, she covered her mouth with one hand and said in a slightly trembling voice,
"I have to tell you, the universe I come from resides in an extremely remote region. It's incredibly poor, and the magic realm just suffered from a major disaster, the magicians have lost almost all of their power."
"At such a critical juncture of survival, I should stand by my hometown, but I unfortunately ended up here, unable to contribute my little power to save my universe, how can I not feel grief and shame..."
"Stop pretending, just say it if you want to bring back a souvenir."
Harley instantly looked at Little Bruce with shining eyes. Little Bruce sighed and said, "Yes, once you engrave this array here, you can summon dark energy to descend. This is the energy source of the 'Solid Darkness'."
"And according to my speculation, the dense energy will not drive the Gothamites madder, they are already very accustomed to this energy."